For those who regularly practice firing rifles or pistols the cost of the ammunition is an expensive consideration. The professional law enforcement agent or the avid sportsman may fire a hundred rounds or more in a single practice session, and the cost in terms of the expended raw materials in addition to the monetary costs leads inevitably to the recognition that an appropriate salvage means is urgently needed for the recovery and re-use of the spent shells.
Shell reloading machines have been known for many years. U.S. Pat. No. 2,031,850, issued Feb. 25, 1936 to C. R. Peterson describes a progressive reloading machine which simultaneously performs the several functions required in the reloading process. Thus, the exploded primer cap is removed, a new primer is inserted, powder is delivered, the end of the shell is enlarged to receive the bullet and a bullet is positioned with each operation of the machine, the several operations taking place on a series of shells carried by the machine in a carriage which is manually rotated so as to move each of the several shells simultaneously carried thereby from one station to the next until the complete set of operations has been performed on each shell. A lever is operated to execute the various operations simultaneously on the several shells, so that while one shell is having its exploded primer cap removed, another is having a new primer inserted etc. Once an individual shell has completed the total circuit it is removed from the carriage and is replaced by another spent shell.
While the Peterson shell reloading machine has much utility, it has certain important limitations and shortcomings. First, the requirement for manually advancing the carriage after each operation is time-consuming and burdensome. Secondly, the machine does not incorporate a means for swaging the cap opening prior to the insertion of a new primer. This is a serious shortcoming, especially in the case of military cartridges in which the remaining crimped edge interferes with the proper seating of the replacement primer. Finally, the drive linkage coupled to the operating lever is not located in such a manner and is not sturdy enough to provide insufficient mechanical advantage to permit the incorporation of a swaging mechanism. It is also not capable of handling all caliber shells and their reloading capabilities.
These and other limitations of the presently-available reloading machines are eliminated in the reloading machine of the present invention.